Ku Klux Klan membership in the United States has fallen approximately a third in the last two years to some 6,000, its ranks depleted by leadership crises, organizational splits and declining financial contributions, according to a “status report” on the Klan and the American neo-Nazi movement made public today by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
But the ADL warned that some Klan desperados, frustrated by the KKK’s failures, are considering a campaign of terror and assassinations against those they view as their enemies. This possibility, ADL said, should not be taken lightly in view of the KKK’s long record of violence and lawlessness.
The ADL also disclosed a parallel decline in the fortunes of the neo-Nazi movement, whose membership was estimated at no more than 500 across the nation — a drop of approximately 50 percent since 1978. The ADL report was prepared by the Fact Finding Department of the agency’s Civil Rights Division and was made public by Justin Finger, director of the division, at a session of the agency’s national executive committee meeting here, which continues through Saturday, at the Fairmont Hotel.
STEADY KKK DECLINE NOTED
The Klan has lost strength, the ADL said, both in hard core members and in the number of sympathizers — where an even greater decline has taken place. Klan rallies,which in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, attracted large, enthusiastic gatherings, now pull in much smaller, “dispirited” crowds, the report said. “No Klan faction today can count on more than a few hundred,” the report said.
According to the ADL’s periodic estimates of Klan strength, active membership in 1973 was 5,000; a mid-1970’s revival brought the figure up to between 9,000 and 10,500 in 1979, and a 1981 peak was put at between 9,700 and 11,500. In 1982, the ADL estimated membership at between 8,000 and 10,000.
Another blow to the Klan, it was pointed out, was defeat on the political front. While a number of Klansmen have run for public office and a few have made “credible showings,” there is not a single elected official in the U.S. who is an acknowledged member of the Klan.
The Klan has also been hurt by vigorous law enforcement — numerous arrests and convictions for lawlessness and violence — and by the adoption in a number of states of ADL model legislation outlawing paramilitary training aimed at fomenting civil disorder, the ADL said.
BASIS FOR NEO-NAZIS DECLINE
In the section of the report dealing with neo-Nazi groups, the ADL said their decline is based on the American people’s rejection of the neo-Nazis as a “foreign import” identified with Nazi Germany in World War II, and also on the splintering process that went on after the 1967 assassination of neo-Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell.
The neo-Nazi have splintered into at least 15 organizations, very few of which can claim as many as a dozen members. The largest of these groups is the “New Order” party based in Arlington, Va., the successor to the original neo-Nazi group founded by Rockwell in 1958.
Units of the organizations, ADL said, are in Cincinnati, Chillicothe (Ohio), Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Port Falls (Idaho), Salinas (California) and San Diego.
Despite their small numbers, the ADL said the neo-Nazis remain a concern, in part because of their nationwide distribution of hate filled, anti-Semitic literature and posters. It named as “the largest of the neo-Nazi publishing mills” Liberty Bell Publications in West Virginia.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
